How disagreements over Russia’s nuclear threats could derail the NPT Review Conference

Members of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), also known as the ban treaty, met June 21-23 in Vienna for the treaty’s first meeting of states parties. As the first formal gathering since the treaty entered into force in 2021, the meeting set the course for implementing the treaty’s bans on nuclear weapons and related activities and its positive obligations on victim assistance and environmental remediation. The meeting also shed light on what to expect at the second, highly anticipated nuclear meeting of the summer: the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference.

For context, the ban treaty is intimately linked to the NPT—although supporters and opponents of the TPNW disagree on exactly how. Critics of the ban treaty—which include nuclear-armed states recognized by the NPT and their allies—contend that the treaty is an unrealistic approach to disarmament that threatens to disrupt the NPT, the cornerstone of the global disarmament and nonproliferation regime. Members of the ban treaty instead argue that the treaty complements the NPT and provides practical mechanisms for implementing the NPT’s commitment to disarmament—and reaffirmed as much in Vienna.